P-40 Air to Ground live firing Wanaka Airshow

[Sokolove]

So, what exactly are the rules here in the United States regarding firing blanks from machine guns on board aircraft while flying? Is it illegal or not? Is there anyway to make this possible?

What an exciting act, I hope that we can see more of this type of thing in the future! Kudos to the New Zealand government for allowing this historic reenactment to take place.

What about the rumor that Lewis Shaw's P-51 was being fitted with working machine guns in Breckinridge? The plan was to fire real bullets from it in flight. Anybody know more about this?

Also, some time ago, before Glacier Girl was test flown, the original plan was to put working machine guns in the nose, have it flown by an Air Force Test Pilot and go fire lead at the ranges at Edwards AFB. It was supposed to be filmed. Obviously, this never happened, but does anybody know why?

I, for sure, will be buying the DVD of Wanaka!

I don't know about Lou's P-51 but I remember seeing clips of a guy (I believe it's Mike Dillon) that was an acquantance of Lou's who also owned a Super Pinto (hence the connection to Lou). Dillon ( a former airline/military pilot) started up "Dillon Precision", an ammo reloading company. Dillon is also the same guy that bought the manufacturing rights for the not-so-impressive General Electric GAU-2 mini gun and reworked it into the amazing Dillon M-134D mini gun. This Dillon fellow lives out in Scottsdale and owns land somewhere up in the Sierra Nevadas complete with trashed out cars for the purpose of practicing strafing runs. I thought he got approval to outfit his super pinto with machine guns. I was pretty sure that those were the clips I had seen. A pinto with a mini gun. But it's been too long now and I can't swear to it.

[Old SAR pilot]

That's not the same Dillon that had live .30's in a T-6 back in the '60s or '70s, is it?

Ah, and for the curious, the below site lists some of the items that can be had, including an M2HB .50 for a mere $52,900...(plus tax)

http://www.autoweapons.com/products/products.html

And speakin' o' blanks, still have 2 cases of linked .30 left...

[retroaviation]

When I worked at Ezell Aviation and help build Lewis Shaw's Mustang, the plan was indeed to have the guns working (at Dillon's place). We even installed a couple tinly little cameras on the airplane to document it all. However, I don't know if the gun shootin' stuff actually happened.

Gary

[oscardeuce]

Those look like star tip blanks. The barrel has to be modified to keep some of the back pressure to cycle the action, but not so much the barrel fails. One cannot fire live rounds with the modified barrel. Some have a clamp on barrel device to allow standard M-2's to fire blanks.

I've fired a M-2 off our ring mount on our DUKW. The whole truck shook, and DUKW's aint tiny or light.

[Old SAR pilot]

Don't know what kind of arrangement they've made for BFD's for their wing guns, but (for those who haven't seen one), a milspec BFD for a ground gun looks like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Brow ... aliber.jpg

Unless they have modified barrels, I'd suspect that the AN/M2 or M3's will have a device attached to the barrel jacket for that purpose. Since they're in-wing mounted, probably something similar to the accelerator cap BFD used on either the 1919A4 or -A6. With that attachment, you can still use the regular barrels.

Last edited by Old SAR pilot on Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[maxum96]

Speaking of Dillon Aero, here's a great video from their website.
I believe the Huey and the 500 are theirs. Video shot on their range.

http://dillonaero.com/docs/highlight1.wmv

[airnutz]

So, what exactly are the rules here in the United States regarding firing blanks from machine guns on board aircraft while flying? Is it illegal or not? Is there anyway to make this possible?

What an exciting act, I hope that we can see more of this type of thing in the future! Kudos to the New Zealand government for allowing this historic reenactment to take place.

What about the rumor that Lewis Shaw's P-51 was being fitted with working machine guns in Breckinridge? The plan was to fire real bullets from it in flight. Anybody know more about this?

Also, some time ago, before Glacier Girl was test flown, the original plan was to put working machine guns in the nose, have it flown by an Air Force Test Pilot and go fire lead at the ranges at Edwards AFB. It was supposed to be filmed. Obviously, this never happened, but does anybody know why?

I, for sure, will be buying the DVD of Wanaka!

I don't know about Lou's P-51 but I remember seeing clips of a guy (I believe it's Mike Dillon) that was an acquantance of Lou's who also owned a Super Pinto (hence the connection to Lou). Dillon ( a former airline/military pilot) started up "Dillon Precision", an ammo reloading company. Dillon is also the same guy that bought the manufacturing rights for the not-so-impressive General Electric GAU-2 mini gun and reworked it into the amazing Dillon M-134D mini gun. This Dillon fellow lives out in Scottsdale and owns land somewhere up in the Sierra Nevadas complete with trashed out cars for the purpose of practicing strafing runs. I thought he got approval to outfit his super pinto with machine guns. I was pretty sure that those were the clips I had seen. A pinto with a mini gun. But it's been too long now and I can't swear to it.

The Discovery Channel program, "Futureweapons" last segment is dedicated to the Dillon minigun (with Huey) just started replaying..NOW. The 30mm M44 cannon with the "smart" airburst rounds was awesome as well. The new converto weapon M-16 replacement was pretty sharp too!

Sorry for the slow headsup...got lost in F3F electric/manual LG retract data digging....

[snj5]

Not to waver much off topic, but I would think cost-wise as well for the sheer visual impact it would be very straightforward to do rockets using some of the larger model rocket engines.

Even the sight of on O-1 launching off some replica 2.75" or WP with the smoke trail as a tracer would be awesome. The 2.25" SCAR rockets would be even easier to do. An aluminum tube, 4 fins and a nosecone with a 10 pound thrust engine - it's really not much different than a standard model rocket, just air launched. And rocket racks are fairly available for numerous aircraft types, both as original or replica, the O-1 and O-2 crowd immediately coming to mind.

Anyone ever done this?

[bdk]

Not to waver much off topic, but I would think cost-wise as well for the sheer visual impact it would be very straightforward to do rockets using some of the larger model rocket engines.

I can't imagine you could (or ever would again) be able to get insurance to do this near a large crowd of people. A bent fin or a damaged nozzle could send the rocket off course into the crowd. Sounds risky to me, but I would like very much to see it if it was determined to be safe.

[ZRX61]

Other than being illegal, if you configure the guns to fire blanks, what's to stop from firing real ammo? I'm not a gun expert, but I would think that if they are configured to fire blanks, they're pretty close to being able to fire real ammo. Anyone know more than I do about the possibility of this?

To get the gun to cycle correctly & feed the next round it needs some back pressure. When a bullet is traveling along the barrel this takes care of that detail.
To get a blank firing M2 to cycle you need to put a restriction in there someplace to create the backpressure. Welding a washer with a 3/8in hole in it to the end of the barrel usually does it...

[Old SAR pilot]

Easiest way to make a fully-functional Browning M3 fire blanks is 1) replace the threaded booster cap (see link) with one that is designed to fire blanks (or a standard one that has been welded up and drilled out to generate sufficient bore pressure), 2) place a feed block in the receiver feed area to prevent ball ammo from being fired.

Booster cap - part no 7312953
http://www.bmgparts.com/aircraft.html

Or, yes, you CAN use a welded-up barrel, but that's REALLY a pain in the wazoo, 'cause you have to get the right sized opening to avoid too much/little back pressure, make sure it fits the cap, etc.

If you look closely at the waist guns firing in Memphis Belle, they have modified booster caps for blank firing. (The ball turret guns in the bottom-on view, btw, appear to be .30's, not .50s.)

HELLCAT Wrote:

Other than being illegal, if you configure the guns to fire blanks, what's to stop from firing real ammo? I'm not a gun expert, but I would think that if they are configured to fire blanks, they're pretty close to being able to fire real ammo. Anyone know more than I do about the possibility of this?

1. They're not illegal, or not illegal to own, anyway.
2. Yes, they are about 20 minutes worth of work per gun to fire live ammo.